BERN NOTICE: Democratic Groups Must Reject Fossil Fuel Industry Cash

[brooklynite]

(personal email)

As a signer of the “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge and the author of the Green New Deal initiative, Bernie today is making a demand: the Democratic Party and its affiliated organizations must fully and completely reject money from the fossil fuel industry.

Bernie’s demand came after The Intercept today broke the news that ExxonMobil funneled $50,000 to the Progressive Policy Institute — a think tank that seeks to shape Democratic Party policy and that has pushed back against lawsuits to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for destroying the planet’s ecosystem (you may recall that Bernie is the only 2020 Democratic candidate pushing a very popular proposal to prosecute fossil fuel corporations and executives who knowingly created the climate crisis).

In recent years, the same parent organization has also received funding from the American Gas Association at the same time the group produced a report insisting that when it comes to exporting natural gas “the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the campaign finance watchdog group MapLight reported on a new book showing that Koch Industries funded the separate group Third Way — which has called Bernie “an existential threat to the future of the Democratic Party.”

In response to the news about Exxon Mobil, Bernie said:

"The Democratic Party must be holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for helping to destroy the planet, not collecting campaign contributions and other donations from them," Sen. Sanders said. "We are not going to be able to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and towards energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy, if powerful political forces within the Democratic Party continue to accept their contributions."

Sen. Sanders continued, "Now is the time for everyone associated with the Democratic Party to say NO to fossil fuel contributions. Now is the time to save our planet from the existential threat of climate change. Now is the time to take on the greed and corruption of the fossil fuel industry for knowingly destroying the environment.”

Think tanks play an important role in shaping the public policy debate over climate change — and in recent years, these corporate-aligned groups have championed fossil fuel development.


For example, one Third Way report touted “unlocking the nation’s vast shale gas reserves.” Amid warnings about climate change, the Progressive Policy Institute successfully pushed to lift the 40-year-old oil export ban and issued a report saying that “lawmakers should be using their political capital to repeal” restrictions on fossil fuel exports and “allow U.S. producers to freely trade oil and gas on world markets.”

These policies are the opposite of what scientists say we must do to prevent a climate catastrophe. For too long, the fossil fuel industry has been able to use think tanks to launder such policies and present them as seemingly academic, pragmatic and nonpartisan — even as these policies are making the climate crisis worse. Stopping the flow of fossil fuel money to these think tanks will be a critical step towards passing a Green New Deal.

Bern after reading,

Sirota

Can't imagine who he's thinking of.....

[TexasTowelie]

1. Bernie can make demands

and the other candidates can (and probably should) ignore him. When other systems for producing energy have their own flaws, it becomes obvious that a more balanced approach should be used to address climate change.